Sunday, January 31, 2010

I was born in Caifornia. Grew up there. Went to UCLA. And promptly left as soon as I found a job elsewhere. Clearly, I didn't like what I saw there. Now, I grew up in a nasty little area of Los Angeles so I'm sure that my experience is not typical of the entire state. I found the people (in South Central Los Angeles) to be racist, hateful, self-centered, greedy, cruel ... etc. I left and have no desire to return. Ever. Granted, I have to return to visit the elderly relatives but that's the only reason and I stay as little time as possible and spend as little money as possible.

Here is just one more reason not to live there - corruption. When found out, rather than vote to eliminate it, legislators in CA voted to expand it.

In April 2008, The Orange County Register published a bombshell of an investigation about a license plate program for California government workers and their families. Drivers of nearly 1 million cars and light trucks—out of a total 22 million vehicles registered statewide—were protected by a “shield” in the state records system between their license plate numbers and their home addresses. There were, the newspaper found, great practical benefits to this secrecy.

“Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras with impunity,” the Register’s Jennifer Muir reported. “Parking citations issued to vehicles with protected plates are often dismissed because the process necessary to pierce the shield is too cumbersome. Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that drivers are ‘one of their own’ or related to someone who is.”

The plate program started in 1978 with the seemingly unobjectionable purpose of protecting the personal addresses of officials who deal directly with criminals. Police argued that the bad guys could call the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), get addresses for officers, and use the information to harm them or their family members. There was no rash of such incidents, only the possibility that they could take place.

So police and their families were granted confidentiality. Then the program expanded from one set of government workers to another. Eventually parole officers, retired parking enforcers, DMV desk clerks, county supervisors, social workers, and other categories of employees from 1,800 state agencies were given the special protections too. Meanwhile, the original intent of the shield had become obsolete: The DMV long ago abandoned the practice of giving out personal information about any driver. What was left was not a protection but a perk.

Yes, rank has its privileges, and it’s clear that government workers have a rank above the rest of us. Ordinarily, if one out of every 22 California drivers had a license to drive any way he chose, there would be demands for more police power to protect Californians from the potential carnage. But until the newspaper series, law enforcement officials and legislators had remained mum. The reason, of course, is that the scofflaws are law enforcement officials and legislators.

Here is how brazen they’ve become: A few days after the newspaper investigation caused a buzz in Sacramento, lawmakers voted to expand the driver record protections to even more government employees. An Assembly committee, on a bipartisan 13-to-0 vote, agreed to extend the program to veterinarians, firefighters, and code officers. “I don’t want to say no to the firefighters and veterinarians that are doing these things that need to be protected,” Assemblyman Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) explained.

Exempting themselves from traffic laws in the name of a threat that no longer exists is bad enough, but what government workers do to the rest of us on a daily basis makes ticket dodging look like child’s play. Often under veils of illegal secrecy, public-sector unions and their political allies are systematically looting the public treasury with gold-plated pensions, jeopardizing the finances of state and local governments around the country, removing themselves from legal accountability, and doing it all in the name of humble working men and women just looking for their fair share. Government employees have turned themselves into a coddled class that lives better than its private-sector counterpart, and with more impunity. The public’s servants have become our masters.

Monday, January 18, 2010

John McCain is running 3 campaign ads per hour every hour on local radio stations in spite of the fact that no the only candidates who have announced are not widely known nor popular. And now I know why (PDF). In a straw poll of Maricopa County (where Phoenix, Arizona is located and where the majority of the population of Arizona live) Republican Party Precinct Committemen, gives us these beautiful results:

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Yesterday I had to go to the Walmart for a new router and cable modem (because something keeps destroying my routers!) and, as I zoomed through the walmart heading for the electronics section (same products were cheaper than at Fry's Electronics), something strange caught my eye.

What can government do about conspiracy theories?""Wecan readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories."In the 30-page paper – obtained and reviewed by WND – Sunstein argues the best government response to "conspiracy theories" is "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups."

Some "conspiracy theories" recommended for ban by Sunsteininclude:"The theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud."

What a moron. How do you go from being a normal human being (assuming he was at some point in time - like the first 5 seconds after he was born) to a complete dumbass?? Didn't Glover get the memo? Global Warming is a hoax! A lie! Based on fraudulent data!

Pat Robertson's comments were equally moronic. Even if some group of Haitians had sold their soul to the devil at some point in the past, that small group does not have the power to sell the souls of an entire population for all eternity. Christians know this. What the hell is Robertson? Another dumbass moron. Of course, if Robertson had just couched his idiocy in terms of Mother Nature's fury rather than God's fury, he might have gotten a pass from the leftist commies. Or not since he's Christian.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

It seems some nutcase (moslem) attempted to murder Kurt Westergaard, creator of the Mo Bomb Head cartoon, today. The attempted assassin was stopped by Danish police. But, this is just one more in a long line of events which demonstrate just how lucky the unarmed populace of the West actually are when the police actually get to them in time. Better to be armed and defend yourself.

Danish police have shot and wounded a man at the home of Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked an international row.Mr Westergaard scrambled into a panic room at his home in Aarhus after a man wielding an axe and a knife broke in.Danish officials said the intruder was a 28-year-old Somali, who they did not name, but said was linked to the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia.The cartoon, printed in 2005, prompted violent protests the following year.One of 12 cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, it depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.In 2006 the paper apologised for the cartoons, but other European media reprinted them.Danish embassies were then attacked by Muslims around the world and dozens killed in riots.Mr Westergaard went in to hiding amid threats to his life, but emerged last year saying he wanted to live as normal a life as possible.His house has been heavily fortified and is under close police protection.Police said the man had entered Mr Westergaard's house armed with a knife and axe and had shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him.Mr Westergaard ran to a specially designed panic room where he raised the alarm.'Strong numbers'Fritz Keldsen, deputy chief superintendent of Aarhus city police, told the BBC: "We got the alarm message from this address, yesterday evening. And we came in strong numbers."When we saw the suspect, he was moving away from the scene. Then he attacked the police patrol. He did that with such skill, that they had to shoot him."The suspect was armed with an axe and a knife, which he used against the police. The police patrol managed to subdue him, with the use of firearms."Police said the suspect was shot in the knee and the shoulder, but his life was not in danger.Mr Westergaard told Jyllands Posten he was shocked that his five-year-old granddaughter, who was in the house at the time, had witnessed the attack.He has now been taken to a safe location, but said defiantly that he would be back, the newspaper reported.Jakob Scharf, who heads the Danish intelligence service Pet, said the attack was "terror related" and that the suspected assailant has close contacts to Somalia's al-Shabab group.He had been under surveillance for activities unrelated to Mr Westergaard, Mr Scharf said.Islamic militants have placed a $1m price on Mr Westergaard's head.Although he is one of 12 cartoonists whose drawings of the Prophet Muhammad were published in Jyllands-Posten, he has the highest profile, our correspondent says.